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One-Pot Pasta With Sausage and Spinach
![One-Pot Pasta With Sausage and Spinach](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/09/01/dining/yf-one-pot-sausage-and-spinach-pasta/merlin_176001870_00e059d4-4eaa-44dc-a1eb-733f6a1c569c-articleLarge.jpg?width=1280&quality=75&auto=webp)
- Total Time
- 20 minutes
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
- 1tablespoon olive oil
- 2sweet or hot Italian sausages (5 to 6 ounces), casings removed
- 1(24-ounce) jar passata or (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes
- ½teaspoon ground cumin
- ½teaspoon red-pepper flakes
- Kosher salt
- 1pound cavatappi, fusilli or other small, tubular pasta
- 5packed cups baby spinach (about 5 ounces)
- ½cup grated Parmesan
Preparation
- Step 1
Heat the oil in a 12-inch, deep skillet with a tight-fitting lid or a Dutch oven over medium-high until shimmering. Use your hands to pull the sausages apart into small pieces; add to the skillet and cook untouched for 1 minute.
- Step 2
Continue to cook for another 4 to 6 minutes, stirring at 1-minute intervals and breaking up the sausage into ½-inch chunks, until browned and crispy on the outside with no pink remaining. If you have more than 1 tablespoon of fat in the pan, drain the excess.
- Step 3
Carefully pour in the passata (it may splatter), then add the cumin, red-pepper flakes and 2 cups water, stirring to combine. Season with salt and increase the heat to bring to a boil.
- Step 4
Add the pasta, coating it with the liquid. (It won’t be fully submerged, and that’s OK.) Adjust the heat to maintain an active simmer with small bubbles forming on the surface. Cover and let cook, stirring every few minutes to make sure nothing is sticking at the bottom of the pan, until the pasta is al dente, about 1 minute less than the package instructions. If the pasta is still hard at this point, add a few tablespoons of warm water at a time and cook until just al dente. Depending on your pasta size and shape, you may need to add several tablespoons of water.
- Step 5
When the pasta is just al dente, reduce the heat to low and season to taste with salt. Stir in the spinach in batches, and cook, uncovered, until most of the spinach is wilted, about 1 minute more. (It will continue to wilt in the heat of the pasta after you serve it.) If the pasta seems too dry, add 1 tablespoon warm water at a time until it reaches your desired consistency.
- Step 6
Divide pasta among serving bowls and top with Parmesan.
Private Notes
Cooking Notes
For a more robust, toasted peppery flavor, put the red pepper flakes in with the sausage during Step 1, rather than with the watery ingredients in Step 3. Besides the browning effect on the flavor, the oil in the red pepper flakes will be more fully released when it’s first cooked in oil.
Solid base, but definitely doesn’t hurt to punch it up. Sautéed some onions and garlic before adding sausage and this turned into a great weeknight dish
For vegetarians, plant-based protein sausages work well, and round out the nutrition and spirit of the recipe as opposed to mushrooms. Several great brands can be found at Whole Foods and elsewhere.
My Libyan grandmother made a version like this called M’sherba. She would build the sauce by frying philphe’chuma paste (or use crushed garlic, paprika, a bit of cumin and chili). Add the Passata, salt and then water (about 1 part passata to 1.5 part water). Once it boiled she added the pasta until cooked. She finished it off with crushed raw garlic and fresh lemon juice. Great if you’re feeling under the weather. Margaz sausage was optional
I find it harder to pull off (the pasta cooking in Tomato sauce) than just merging them at the end. So... just cook pasta separate till al dente, stir it in and proceed with the spinach to finish it off. Worked perfectly for me.
I make a version of this with sweet sausage, garlic, broccoli rabe, and crushed tomatoes. Bitterness of the rapini plays well against the rest of the dish. 1. Brown the sausage 2. Add minced garlic and cook till fragrant 3. Add bite-sized pieces of broccoli rabe 4. Add 28 oz. can of crushed tomatoes and cook at a simmer for ~20 mins You also can add a pinch of sugar or crushed red pepper. I use rigatoni. Cook al dente and serve with parmesan. Weeknight dinner in 30 mins and it’s delicious.
I make a variation of this recipe (almost exact) and its delicious, easy, and fast. To make it even faster, I will cook a whole pack of Italian sausages with the casings removed and freeze it in 2-3 freezer bags. I then throw one of the bags of cooked sausage into this recipe, or a stromboli, and it saves you time and dishes. I also bloom the red pepper flakes and Italian seasoning while cooking the sausage as someone else suggested.
I would skip the cumin altogether, but would add shallots and garlic to the pot along with the sausage. I also agree with Jim the red pepper flakes should cook with the sausage as well. This will enhance the flavor of the dish with more than just heat. Salt and pepper to taste will finish this up beautifully.
This is very close to my goulash recipe. I recommend using one hot and one sweet sausage and a quarter cup or more of red win; also we just tear leaves of spinach and put them in the serving bowls placing the hot goulash on top as we like it better that way. Sometimes we use feta rather than parmesan - it has a stronger flavor which compliments the dish, and smokey paprika rather than cumin. Point is, you can flavor and serve this dish in many different ways, so have fun with it.
I wanted to love this. Love Fahr. I really wonder sometimes though, if some recipes live on another planet from me. First off I needed at least 4 cups of water to make this work. The risotto-like effect of the pasta and sauce wasn't a pleasing texture for me. That pasta water taste! Quite bland flavour-wise as well. I even added garlic and fresh basil to the mix (and doubled the cumin). I think I'll just stick to my usual tomato sauce and pasta combo.
In keeping with the one-pot spirit of this recipe, I cooked the pasta first, to just barely al dente, then drained and set it aside while I proceeded with the sauce in the same pan. Then there’s no need to keep adding water and the texture is more pleasing (to me, anyway!). I agree with the others that adding the red pepper flakes to the oil and sausage really enhances the flavor. I also added 1/2 t of fennel seed at that stage, and substituted smoked paprika for the cumin.
This seems like a staple of my fifties childhood, including Campbell’s tomato soup and Velvetta cheese, but without the greens.
I made a variation with ground lamb instead of sausage. Added crushed fennel, cinnamon and smoked paprika, plus the cumin and red pepper. I only used 12 ounces pasta and it was more than enough, I still had to add water. Very good. Next time I will cut the quantity of pasta even more, and add garlic as suggested by others. This is a fun, updated version of the old fashioned macaroni/beef/tomato casserole.
Easy and delicious. Added onion and garlic and sprinkled some fresh basil on before serving. One pot weeknight meal that everyone loved. Definitely a keeper.
I used 3/4 lb. of sausage and it still didn't feel like enough. I think I will use a pound next time.
I used whole-wheat penne and had to add quite a bit of water at the end. I would add at least an extra half cup at the beginning next time. In the end it was pretty good for a weeknight dish with no chopping.
Add minced shallot (2?), red pepper flakes, and crushed garlic (remove when brown) at the start?
Loved this! Great simple weeknight recipe for those of us who are lazy and don’t own dishwashers. I used plant-based sausage (from TJ’s) and halved the ingredients (for one person plus leftovers) - it turned out delicious!
Love this recipe! It is exactly what they say a perfect meal to make on a night when you don’t feel like cooking. The only variations I made was I used 8 ounces of pasta since it’s only two in my household, so my end result was probably saucier than pictured. I used beef froth instead of water and my seasoning was oregano instead of cumin. Super fast, easy cleanup, great weeknight dish!
To those of you who cooked the pasta separately, did you still add the 2 cups of water because I’m thinking those 2 cups of water are to help the pasta cook if you cook it all in one pot?
At minimum halve the recipe! Followed recipe with following substitutions: two 14 oz cans fire roasted tomatoes, and 1/2 cup red wine with 1-1/2 C water. Delicious, but way more than 4 servings. I’ll be eating this for a week, and I’m sure it doesn’t freeze well. Or does it?
Quick, easy and delicious. Great for a satisfying meal on a cold winter weeknight. Only change I made was following what one commenter suggested - adding the red pepper flakes in with the sausage. THANK YOU for yet another great recipe!
Followed recipe exactly. Horrible. Worse than airplane food
I added more cumin than requested, used mild Italian sausage, and rotini pasta. It soaks up the sauce a lot more though is a tad longer to cook than if I had cooked the pasta and then added later. I also added shitake mushrooms when cooking the sausage for a little extra earthiness - highly recommend!
I made a vegan version using impossible's spicy Italian sausage and some nutritional yeast, I also put in the pepper flakes before the water to kick it up a little, it's delicious!
This recipe is really great with merguez. Also some harissa added along with the chili flakes if you like heat.
3 sausages and deglaze with wine
This is one of my favourites
We had to do a lot of doctoring at the end to make it taste better. We added a significant amount of sugar and garlic powder. We started with the can of crushed tomatoes (Passada wasn’t in our grocery store).
Did not cook the pasta in the sauce. Fried off 1lb hot sausage meat. Removed after browned. Added onion and fennel for four minutes. Added red pepper and garlic 4 mins. Deglazed 50ml red wine. Added 2 tbsp tomato paste, cooked till brick red. Added can toms. Dried oregano approx 1/2 tsp. Plus multiple basil sprigs, parsley and 1/6 can washed out with water. Simmered for 20 mins and added couple of tbsp of pasta cooking water to finish. Parmesan, parsley, basil and fennel fronds to fin.
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